NASA's Apollo 13 checklist sells for $390,000

Nov 30, 2011

This image released by Heritage Auctions of Dallas, Texas, shows a partial view of the Lunar Module Systems Activation Checklist of the ill-fated Apollo 13 Moon Mission. The checklist used to guide the wounded Apollo 13 spacecraft home after the explosion that led to the famed "Houston, we've had a problem" call sold at auction in Texas Wednesday for just under $390,000.

A checklist used to guide the wounded Apollo 13 spacecraft home after the explosion that led to the famed "Houston, we've had a problem" call sold at auction in Texas Wednesday for just under $390,000.

The checklist booklet contains handwritten calculations by Commander James Lovell to determine the spacecraft's angle of descent back to Earth and other notes.

NASA transcripts show how Lovell asked Houston to "check my arithmetic to make sure we got a good course align." The three-man crew was running out of oxygen, water and heat and only had one chance to make it home safely.

The Apollo 13 Lunar Module Systems Activation Checklist fetched the highest price, at $388,375, for a piece of Apollo Space Program memorabilia that did not make it to the moon's surface, Heritage Auctions said.

"Without this (booklet) the Apollo 13 crew would not have known their position in space," said Michael Riley, senior historian at the Dallas-based auction house. "It helped create the greatest successful failure in the history of space exploration."

Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the US space program and was supposed to be the third to land on the moon. But an oxygen tank exploded two days after its April 17, 1970 launch, badly damaging the spacecraft some 200,000 miles from Earth.

The booklet was sold to an anonymous collector who lives on the east coast of the United States.

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User comments : 2

Seems to be a contradiction that this could be sold for profit but NASA found it acceptable to rough up a little old lady and threaten a lawsuit against an elderly former astronaut for trying to sell Apollo era artifacts.

Oliver Manuel's recent efforts to plaster Physorg.com and other public news sites with his theories and personal URLs are a bit puzzling, as scientists have a variety of publications available to communicate directly to each other in. My best guess is that he is desperately trying to prop up his legacy in light of his arrest in his university office on 7 charges of rape and sodomy based on allegations by 4 of his own children. The charges have been reduced to one count of felony attempted sodomy, not necessarily because of his innocence, but because of the statute of limitations. One can only guess how the recent charges and decades of family strife have affected his ability to reason rationally and to remain objective while defending his unpopular theorieshttp://www.mshp.d...leName=K